Turned out the Dodd bill published on Tuesday was a bit of a non-event for OTC derivatives reform. Looks like the forthcoming amdendment from Sens. Reed and Gregg will lay out the real details for OTC derivatives. Even still, some interesting differences do exist between the wording in the House and Senate bills. My comments to Bloomberg:

The House bill defines such an entity in part as one “that could expose those counterparties to significant credit losses.” The Dodd bill says a major swap participant is one that “would cause significant credit losses to its swap counterparties.” The difference between “could” and “would” is important, said Kevin McPartland, a senior analyst at Tabb Group.

“This is Dodd trying to have major hedge funds who are arguably not systemically important included in the definition because they would cause losses to their direct counterparties if they went under,” he said.